2018 Tanglewood reviews

Article updated Nov. 16, 2018, by Dave Conlin Read

Tanglewood photos from the 2018 season, dubbed by the BSO “Summer of Lenny in the Berkshires,” which peaked on Aug. 25 with a kaleidoscopic array of artists and ensembles from the worlds of classical music, film, and Broadway. The entire first half of the program is dedicated to selections from such brilliant Bernstein works as Candide, West Side Story, Mass, and Serenade. Music from the classical canon very dear to Bernstein’s heart-selections from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and music by Copland, plus a new work by John Williams, makes up a good portion of the program’s second half; the finale of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony brought the program to a close.

Article updated August 26, 2018 by Dave Read

The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood, the culmination of the Summer of Lenny in the Berkshires, was a three hour variety show that wrapped up with the rafter-rattling Finale from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection.” But, since it would’ve been too tidy for this event to dissolve into silence, host Audra McDonald returned and began singing Somewhere, from West Side Story, and by the time the curtain did drop, that chestnut had been made refulgent by Ms. McDonald, three operatic soloists, a dozen gang members (Jets, Sharks), a few conductors, scores of instrumentalists, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Tanglewood is where Leonard Bernstein’s nonpareil career got crucial early boosts from Serge Koussevitsky and Aaron Copland in 1940, and where it ended in 1990 with his final performance, six weeks before his death. The Leonard Bernstein Office asserts that the centennial celebration includes more than 2,300 events around the world. It is such a big deal that it was the Google doodle for August 25, 2018:

Tale of two Tanglewoods

There is some irony in the realization that Highwood House, setting for Highwood’s Ghost, the piece John Williams composed for the Bernstein Centennial, serves today as a sort of dividing line in the stratification of the Tanglewood audience. It’s the Jets banding together against the Sharks; it’s Upstairs, Downstairs. One audience nestles under a canopy to nosh canapes over by Highwood House, while the other one swarms the lawn around the Shed!

The event was recorded by PBS for airing in December. We chatted with a member of the film crew, wondering if he had worked any of the televised Tanglewood shows, such as the Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Gala or Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble? That was a lucky question because it turns out he was on the crew hired in 1995 by Sony to record a Wynton Marsalis program – which many people hoped would lead to something along the lines of Leonard Bernstein’s wildly popular and successful Young People’s Concerts, which aired on CBS from 1958 until 1972.

We will add photos, video, and copy to this report, so please, stay tuned!

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2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Article updated August 21, 2018 by Dave Read

The Sunday afternoon (Aug. 19) program on the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2018 Tanglewood calendar has loomed in anticipation since I filled out my summer concert list months ago, especially because of the rarity of the Bernstein selection, Three Meditations from Mass, for cello and orchestra, which has been performed at Tanglewood only once, in 1998, with Yo-Yo Ma on cello and Seiji Ozawa conducting. Excerpted from Mass, which he composed for the 1971 opening of The Kennedy Center, the Meditations for cello and orchestra was premeired there six years later, with Bernstein conducting the National Symphony and Mstislav Rostropovich on cello.

This program opened with An Outdoor Adventure by Bernstein’s original Tanglewood instructor Aaron Copland, probably second only to Serge Koussevitsky in his importance to Bernstein’s development as a musician.

John Williams celebrates Leonard Bernstein with Highwood’s Ghost

Oh Man – Koussevitsky, Copland, Bernstein… sometimes it is hard to introduce a Tanglewood article without bumping into ghosts! Nothing to be frightened about, so long as the orchestra on stage is comprised of Tanglewood Fellows, the women and men soon to matriculate from the Tanglewood Music Center into careers in the world’s leading orchestras. Fifty years from now, dozens of musicians in this orchestra will be delighting audiences in grand music halls and outdoor venues around the world. Time and mortality may be buzzkills in many settings, but they are key to the alchemy of music, our balm no matter the season – grief or joy.

Nelsons and Ma – pas de deux

For all the auditory brilliance radiating from the stage today, I’m logging a visual memory – the apparition of Andris Nelsons and Yo-Yo Ma, following both Highwood’s Ghost and the Three Meditations, each acheiving a pose in assymetrical opposition to the other, becoming perfectly still, their gazees locked until sound had vanished.

And speaking of the visual, after today, Highwood’s Ghost is my favorite John Williams film score! To hell with Hollywood, and Mammon’s other labs, a far more entertaining movie streams across the silver screen of the mind while listening to this latest addition to the Tanglewood canon.

Here are the composer’s note on Highwood’s Ghost:

“Highwood is one of the grand old houses of the Tanglewood campus, which stands today with dignity and grace as it has since 1846.

I well remember one night, as Lenny was making his way up the first stairwell, exclaiming “this place is haunted!” Coincidentally, I’m told that a number of people who worked at the house over the years have also felt Highwood to be haunted. In any case, it may be expected that Lenny, genius that he was, might have had a special ability to receive transmission from the sphere of spirits and signs.

I thought a little piece about this history might be fun, and provide the unusual combination of harp and cello an opportunity to set the stage for an ectoplasmic visit.

The music, as you may notice, is a little haunted by Lenny, but it is not suggested that he is the ghost. You’re invited to listen and make your own guess as to the identity of this seemingly very pleasant spirit… I have my own ideas.”

The program concluded with another piece particularly suited to be both a workout and a showcase for the student orchestra, Concerto for Orchestra by Bela Bartok – just as the 2012 The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert did, with the late Maestro Rafael Frubeck de Burgos conducting.

Yo-Yo Ma joins Andris Nelsons for Copland, Bernstein, Williams and Bartók

Sunday, Aug. 19, 2:30 p.m. Koussevitsky Music Shed

• The Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert
• Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
• Andris Nelsons, conductor
• Yo-Yo Ma, cello
• COPLAND An Outdoor Overture
• BERNSTEIN Three Meditations from Mass, for cello and orchestra
• John WILLIAMS New work for cello and orchestra (world premiere)
• BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra

Article updated August 10, 2018 by Dave Read

Joshua Bell resembled an athlete who knows he’ll soon be sent into the game during the opening moments of the Wienawski Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, the feature selection of the Aug. 5, 2018 program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk. He swayed gently side to side, with shallow knee bends – not warming up or stretching, just keeping loose, staying calm, then, on cue, he fairly exploded into action.

There is a wonderful contrast between what you see and what you hear – Bell never looks frantic or frenetic, all his gestures and bends and twists are neat and balanced, betraying the work of bone, sinew, and muscle. What the ear perceives, however, is not rooted in anatomy, emerges not from the realm of the empirical but from the metaphysical house of beauty.

Dima Slobodeniouk conducts Borodin, Wieniawski and Prokofiev featuring Joshua Bell

Encores are rare in the classical music world, and the Tanglewood audience almost always rises with a rousing ovation and shouts of “Bravo!” that bring about one or two “curtain calls” when the soloist and conductor return the compliment. Today, there was an encore – Mr. Bell nearly immolated his burnished fiddle playing a selection from The Red Violin by John Corigliano, from the eponymous movie.

The concert opened with Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from “Prince Igor,” a splendid number sure to sound familiar to even the short-haired low-brows in the audience, because of its prominence on those late night TV ads for monster hits from the classical repertoire.

Sunday, Aug. 5, 2:30 p.m. Koussevitsky Music Shed

• Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
• Joshua Bell, violin
• BORODIN Polovtsian Dances
• WIENIAWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2
• PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Hotels in the Berkshires

Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.